April 27, 2017
As we reach the 100th day of Trump’s presidency, we awake each morning feeling like strangers in a strange land. Efforts to analyze Trump’s tenure thought the conventional lens applied to the 44 preceding presidents are futile. Although political commentators delighted in their takedown of The White House press release riddled with inaccuracies, laughing at the absurdity of a comparison between Trump and FDR; viewed another way, Trump’s impact has indeed been consequential. In 100 days, Trump has radically altered our country’s place in the world and shattered its compact with its citizens. Trump has derided decades’ long alliances with Western Europe, casting grave doubt on our commitment to NATO and emboldening Putin’s dream of reasserting Russia’s place as a global superpower. Trump has cozied up to authoritarians like Erdogan and el-Sisi, played footsie with wannabe Nazis like LePen, while shunning centrist democratic leaders like Angela Merkel.
Trump has abruptly abdicated our role (however inconsistently we embodied it) as upholders of human rights and democratic ideals. Despite repeatedly being rebuffed by the courts, Trump has persisted in his attempt to ban Muslims from entering the country. He has renounced the idea that our country derives strength from diversity. Under Trump, CPB agents have become the petty functionaries of an ethno-nationalist autocracy and ICE agents, Stormtroopers who gleefully round up parents of young children for deportation. The administration’s latest innovation in the infrastructure of oppression is VOICE (the Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement Office) which encourages people to reach out to the federal government when they are the victims of crimes committed by immigrants. The establishment of this office flies in the face of data which consistently demonstrates that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes. This is government by white grievance, crafting policies designed to satisfy a misguided thirst for vengeance, facts be damned. Meanwhile Trump and Congressional Republicans unveil initiative after initiative designed to make the lives of most Americans appreciably worse. The tax plan unveiled yesterday would be an undisguised boon to the ultra-wealthy, which would explode the deficit and impoverish the government, rendering it incapable of repairing our crumbling infrastructure, funding scientific innovation, or ensuring the basic welfare of our citizens. This is government by kleptocratic billionaires who want to strip America and sell it for parts.
Trump’s administration is also waging a war on knowledge and information itself. The appointment of a theocratic school privatization zealot as head of the Department of Education was Step 1. Step 2 was Trump’s recent directive that the DOE examine whether the federal government had overstepped its authority in regulating education, signaling a retreat from the imposition of federal mandates surrounding minimum competency standards, the education of children with disabilities, or equal treatment of Black and Latino students. In addition, FCC Chair Ajit Pai seeks to overturn net neutrality rules, which would choke off the flow of information to citizens over the internet and put it in control of the highest bidder. This is government by anti-intellectuals, who know that an uninformed populace is more easily controlled. All of this is being orchestrated by a president more corrupt and debased than anyone we have ever seen. Trump has detonated every political and legal norm that governed the last 44 presidents, assisted by a Republican Congress that would ignore presidential matricide if it allowed them to realize their vision of a plutocratic theocracy. In a mere 100 days, Trump has rendered the United States virtually unrecognizable. Trump’s tenure has been consequential indeed. Let’s ensure that it is not a long one.